Presented by Michael Jackson as the selection of September 2002
in his "Great Beers of Belgium" beer club.

Perhaps people question the existence of Saison because it has no clear definition in respect of raw materials and processes. It is one of those instances where a number of beers from a certain region are broadly similar in character and use the same designation on their labels.

In fact no style has a rigid definition. Even in Germany, where a disciplined approach finds favor, the malt and hop grists of two Pilseners, for example are not required to be identical. A German might nonetheless be puzzled by broader styles such as Saison. Saisons were regarded as a distinct family of beers by brewing scientists in the late 1800s and early 1900s. these beers were originally produced to a variety of strengths, including "children’s", "family", "double", and "royal" (regal), but they were especially associated with the summer season. The beer had to be sturdy enough to last for the summer months, when brewing was impossible, but not too strong to be a harvest quencher.

Those two characteristics help identify a Saison today. It is a medium-to-strong summer ale, traditionally with a distinctively yellow-orange color; highly carbonated; well hopped, dry and fruity, with a thirst cutting acidity and a crisply quenching finish. It is hard to define by technical specification or method of production. Over the years many techniques have been used.

Hard water is often used. High mashing temperatures are sometimes employed, to produce a substantial degree of un-fermentable sugars, giving a firm edge to the beer. In the past, some brewers allowed the wort to develop a degree of natural lactic acid before the boil. Or this may have happened afterwards, in the wort-cooling. Some breweries used the Baudelot system, in which the wort was exposed to the air, and any wild micro-organisms present, as it flowed over the outside of pipes containing cold water. Some of the beers gained acidity during maturation, usually in mild steel tanks. In some instances the refreshing acidity was imparted by a blending of young and old beers. These brews are sometimes flavored with dry-tasting spices and in the past were often dry-hopped. Their flavors also suggest the use of some very characterful yeasts.

Saisons are usually presented in corked Champagne bottles, with a secondary fermentation, and they can pour with a dense rocky head. They are produced especially in and around the western part of the province of Hainaut. Saisons have typically been made by a handful of mainly very small and artisanal breweries. Some of these breweries show their origins as farms, and one or two others speak of the small beginnings of the industrial revolution.

I am sometimes asked how Saisons compare with the Bieres de Garde made across the border. The answer is that the French style at its most typical is not at all crisp or summery: it is softer, more rounded, richer, sweeter, and maltier, sometimes with a licorice note.

Silly. Just across the border, near the town of Enghien, (in Flemish Edingen), is the village of Silly, which sounds perfectly sensibly in French. This village, on the river Sille, grows sugar-beet and wheat. In the center or the village is a café proclaiming the beers of the family Meynsbrughen (who seem to have fiddled with the spelling of their name over the years). Next door, behind a restored façade, is a cobbled yard that looks straight into the brewhouse. It is still very much an agricultural brewery.

Farmer Nicholas Meynsbrughen established the brewery in 1850, and his family still runs it. All of its beers have a very soft fruitiness, reminiscent of nectarine. Its Saison de Silly is made by the blending of a pale brew with a darker one that has been aged for about a year in a metal tank. Some devotees feel that Saison de Silly is the example most loyal to the tradition, though it does not have refermentation in the bottle. The brewery’s other products include pale and dark versions of its maltier, stronger (8 % abv) Double Enghien and a potent, smooth, spritzy bronze ale called La Divine (9.5 % abv)

This area is noted for its loyalty to the local ‘biéres spéciales’. It is the Jeu de Balles that causes the thirst,? I was told by the patron at Café Titien, in nearby Bassilly. He was talking about Pelotte, a game that appears in odd pockets and in various rather different forms, along the European seaboard from Friesland to the Basque country of Spain – and, as Jai-Lai, from Cuba to Florida to Connecticut. There was a league-table on the wall. The Jeu de Balles has also led to the practice of long-distance egg throwing. In 1990, one of the locals threw an egg 63 meters, and it landed in the The Guinness Book of Records.

Tasting note: rich, sweetish, with a syrupy maltiness, balanced by a distinctive wineyness and tartness.

Food Pairing: fruity desserts. For example, caramelized oranges. Trifle. Sticky toffee pudding.”